Kvinnor ska veta sin plats i arkiven : en komparativ metadataanalys av kvinnors närvaro i historiska arkiv

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to analyze women’s presence in historical archives by studying the structure of two specific archival institutions and their information retrieval systems. The institutions we have chosen are the National Archives of Sweden and Women’s History Collections at the University of Gothenburg. The study has been conducted by searching for women of varying levels of recognition and status, as well as occupations and other search terms which can be linked to individuals, both men and women. We have then analyzed to which degree these women can be found, if they can be found and how well-represented women are when using non-gender specific search terms. Our theoretical framework is grounded in postmodern archival theory, which discusses the role of the archivist as creator of history. It calls for a more conscious approach towards the material and the way in which history is created. We have then linked these thoughts to appropriate gender theory with the aim to point out similarities between the fields and how they can benefit from each other. The results of our study have shown that women are harder to find in historical archives than men. We have also found that there are seldom any cross references between the archives of spouses, a factor that would facilitate the access to women’s archives as their documents often lie with their husbands’. When it comes to the theoretical part of our study, the results have shown that archival theory and gender theory have similarities when discussing history’s impact on the structures of society. Therefore we have concluded that archival theory and practice would benefit from incorporating a gender perspective.